Call for Papers: Biennial Conference on International Law and the Social Sciences

A call for papers has been issued for the Biennial Conference on International Law and the Social Sciences of the American Society of International Law's International Law and Social Sciences Interest Group. The conference will take place, September 27-28, 2024, at Northwestern University School of Law. Details, including the call, are here.

New Volume: Yearbook of International Disaster Law

The latest volume of the Yearbook of International Disaster Law (Vol. 5, 2022) is out. Contents include:

• Thematic Section: Human Rights and Disasters
• YIDL Dialogues with Practitioners #2: Dr Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - A Dialogue with Marie Aronsson-Storrier and Emanuele Sommario
• Siobhán Mullally & Keelin Barry, Trafficking in Persons in the Context of Climate-Related Disasters and Displacement: a Failure of Protection and Prevention 
• Susan Breau, Lessons from COVID-19 with Respect to the Positive Obligations of States to Protect Older Persons in the Event of Disasters 
• Christina Binder, Emergencies in the Inter-American Human Rights System: the Example of Ecuador in Times of COVID-19 
• Miriam Cullen, Benedicte Sofie Holm, & Céline Brassart-Olsen, A Human Rights-Based Approach to Disaster Risk Management in Greenland: Displacement, Relocation, and the Legacies of Colonialism 
• Federica Passarini, The Prevention of Disasters Related to Natural Hazards in the Practice of Human Rights Courts and Treaty Bodies: towards a DRR Approach 
• Holly A. Seglah & Kevin Blanchard, Sexual and Gender Minorities and the Right to Non-discrimination: a Shortfall of Disaster Risk Reduction? 
• Stellina Jolly & Chhaya Bhardwaj, Exploring the Role of the National Human Rights Commission in Climate-Induced Disaster Displacement in India: Lessons from Sri Lanka and the Philippines 
• Kumush Suyunova, Human Rights Restrictions Prompted by the COVID-19 Pandemic: Uncertainties and Differences in the Practice of ECHR Parties 
• General Section
• Tuomas Palosaari, Legal Form and Competing Framings of Cross-Border Disaster Displacement in the Context of Climate Change 
• Natalia Cwicinskaja, The Impact of the COVID-19 on Contested Territorial Entities of Eastern Europe: between Isolation and Cooperation 
• Rebeca Isabel Muñoz Arosemena, International Disaster Law in Honduras: the Role of the Red Cross and IFRC in Integrating International Guidelines into the Domestic Legal System 

Conversation: Exiting the Energy Charter Treaty under the Law of Treaties

On April 19, 2024, Bocconi University will host a conversation, in the hybrid format, on "Exiting the Energy Charter Treaty under the Law of Treaties." Lorand Bartels (Univ. of Cambridge), Tibisay Morgandi (Queen Mary Univ. of London), and Roger O'Keefe (Bocconi Univ.) will discuss whether there is a way under the law of treaties for states parties withdrawing from the Energy Charter Treaty to circumvent the treaty’s twenty-year sunset clause. This is the latest in the series Bocconi Conversations in International Law. The event will take place at Bocconi University, via Röntgen 1, 20136 Milan, room 1.c3.01, from 4:30pm to 6:00pm. Registration is required for attendance in person (email dip.ius@unibocconi.it). The event will be on Zoom here (meeting ID 993 0983 0316, passcode 539190).

Call for Papers: Third Annual Conference of the Western Sahara Research Group

A call for papers has been issued for the Third Annual Conference of the Western Sahara Research Group, to be held September 11, 2024, at Queen Mary University of London. The call is here.

Call for Submissions: German Yearbook of International Law

The German Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions for its forthcoming volume 67 (2024). The deadline is August 31, 2024. The call is here.

Conference: International Humanitarian Law Legal Clinics Networking Conference

On May 30, 2024, the IHL RED Consortium, with the support of the ICRC, will host, in the hybrid format, the "Internaitonal Humanitarian Law Legal Clinics Networking Conference" at Roma Tre University. The conference will focus on the opportunities and challenges of clinical legal education in international humanitarian law. Free participation is possible online and in-person. Details are here.

Pereira & Morosini: Textbooks as Markers and Makers of International Law: A Brazilian Case Study

Luíza Leão Soares Pereira (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Law) & Fabio Costa Morosini (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul - Law) have posted Textbooks as Markers and Makers of International Law: A Brazilian Case Study (European Journal of International Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This article challenges conventional views of international law textbooks as mere instructional tools and explores them as powerful sites for shaping knowledge and the discipline. Drawing on empirical methods and critical theory, we analyse the 10 main international law textbooks used in Brazil and conduct interviews with their authors to illuminate the textbooks’ complexities and their potential for shaping the discipline and the profession. The article delves into the tension between the structure of international law as depicted in the textbooks and the agency of their authors, investigating the authors’ identities and backgrounds. Brazil serves as a compelling case study due to its numerous international law textbooks and their widespread use. Our results indicate a predominant universalist approach in Brazilian textbooks and their connection to the French international law tradition. Moreover, the study sheds light on the Brazilian ‘invisible college’ of international lawyers, revealing gender and racial disparities and institutional centralities. It also uncovers crucial omissions in the textbooks, such as the relationship of international law to colonialism, slavery, race, gender and economic inequality. Overall, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of international law as a field in Brazil and provides a valuable methodological framework for future research on textbooks’ role in shaping the discipline.

Nakajima, Okada, & Nisugi: The sovereign function test out of thin air? The status of the central bank determined behind the scenes in Certain Iranian Assets

Kei Nakajima (Univ. of Tokyo - Law), Yohei Okada (Kobe Univ. - Law), & Kento Nisugi (Osaka Univ. - Law) have posted The sovereign function test out of thin air? The status of the central bank determined behind the scenes in Certain Iranian Assets (Journal of International Dispute Settlement, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

On 30 March 2023, the International Court of Justice rendered its judgment on the merits of the case concerning Certain Iranian Assets, in which the Iranian central bank was not characterized as a company within the meaning of the Treaty of Amity. In so concluding, the Court relied upon the test focusing on the central bank’s sovereign functions and the purposes of the transaction at stake. Debate surrounds the origin and sources of inspiration of the sovereign function test, insofar as the majority’s minimum reasoning leaves an impression that it arose from thin air. This article explores the origin and the sources of inspiration of the test, concluding that the Court’s judgment affords the reading that the test was inspired, albeit clandestinely, by rules and practice specifically dedicated to the characterization of central bank activities, located in areas such as the laws of State immunity or responsibility, by judicial cross-referencing.

Lythgoe: The Rebirth of Territory

Gail Lythgoe (Univ. of Edinburgh - Law) has published The Rebirth of Territory (Cambridge Univ. Press 2024). Here's the abstract:

The concept of territory is central in international law, but a detailed analysis of how the concept is used in both discourse and practice has been lacking until now. Rather than reproducing the established understanding of territoriality within the international legal order, this study suggests that the discipline of international law relies on an outmoded spatial paradigm. Gail Lythgoe argues for a complete update and overhaul of our understanding of territory and space, to engage more effectively with key processes, structures and actors relevant to contemporary global governance. In this new theoretical account of an essential aspect of public international law, she argues that territory is a dynamic social reality created by the exercise of power. Territories are constituted by the practices of a more diverse array of actors than is acknowledged. As a result, functions are re-assembling in territories constituted by state and non-state actors alike.

Call for Papers: African International Economic Law Network 7th Biennial (Bridge) Conference

The African International Economic Law Network has issued a call for papers for its 7th Biennial (Bridge) Conference, to take place July 18-20, 2024, in Dar es Salaam. The theme is: "A Critical Appraisal of the Status and Implementation of the AfCFTA Agreement and Its Protocols." The call is here.

Case & Mégret: The Colour of Jus Cogens

Sarah Riley Case (McGill Univ. - Law) & Frédéric Mégret (McGill Univ. - Law) have posted The Colour of Jus Cogens (in Emancipating International Law: Confronting the Violence of Racialized Boundaries, Mohsen al Attar, Ata Hindi, & Claire Smith, eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The international law doctrine of jus cogens recognizes that some prohibitions – such as those against slavery, genocide, and torture – have peremptory status above other international norms and cannot be negotiated away by treaty. However, in their 1993 article “The Gender of Jus Cogens” Hillary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin claimed, “the concept of jus cogens is not a properly universal one as its development has privileged the experiences of men over those of women, and it has provided a protection to men that is not accorded to women.” The definition of jus cogens in spaces dominated by men, they argued, entrenched gendered experiences with distributive consequences. Jus cogens norms did not address the impacts on women of violence, poverty, food insecurity, and inaccessible health care. Jus cogens norms are biased and have been used to reinscribe benefits that men accrue from oppressing women.

Charlesworth and Chinkin published their article during early engagements with Feminist Approaches to International Law across the Global North, which foregrounded how international law is socially constructed to produce gender disparities. Sources of inspiration for these approaches included literature on colonialism and Third World feminisms. In their discussion of jus cogens, Charlesworth and Chinkin therefore used the term ‘women’ to refer to persons ‘around the world’ whose experiences jus cogens should reflect. Nonetheless, proposals to accommodate women in international law coming from the Global North have since been critiqued for eclipsing alternate feminisms and perspectives concerned with racism, colonialism, gender normativity, and economic inequality, with important consequences.

Acknowledging these nuances, we wish to focus on whether jus cogens reinforces hierarchies associated with multiple forms of imperialism. This has led us to ask if jus cogens might be associated with the dominance of people who have benefitted from and reproduce the white supremacy of colonialism and transatlantic slavery. The question is whether jus cogens might be defined by processes of racialization, simultaneously caught up with gender and class. We recognize, as Charlesworth and Chinkin did, that evoking jus cogens norms is often symbolic in practice. Our intuition is that jus cogens has at times been evoked for its symbolic value to discipline racialized peoples across a gender spectrum, while their appeals to jus cogens have often been excluded from its ambit of protection.

Lecture: Lavrysen on "Climate Law: International and European Perspectives"

On April 8, 2024, Luc Lavrysen (Constitutional Court of Belgium) will deliver a lecture (on Zoom) as part of the Wuhan University School of Law Global Law Distinguished Lecture Series. The topic is: "Climate Law: International and European Perspectives." Qin Tianbao (Wuhan Univ.) and Liu Bingyu (China Univ. of Political Science and Law) will serve as discussants, and Ignacio de la Rasilla (Wuhan Univ.) will be the moderator. Details are here.

Lecture: Hernández on "Adjudicating War? A new front at the ICJ"

On April 11, 2024, Gleider Hernández (Catholic Univ. of Leuven) will give the next lecture of the TuLaw - Tübingen Lecture Series on the Laws of War. The topic is: “Adjudicating War? A new front at the ICJ.” Details are here.

New Issue: Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international

The latest issue of the Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international (Vol. 25, no. 4, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Inge Van Hulle, The Blood Brotherhood and Colonial Treaties and Alliances: Between Myth and Reality
• Bogotá at 75
• Justina Uriburu & Francisco-José Quintana, Bogotá at 75: Palaces, Streets, and Classrooms
• Lucas Lixinski, Indigeneity at the 1948 Bogotá Conference
• Nicolás M. Perrone, Locating the 1948 Economic Agreement of Bogotá: The Rise and Fall of Latin America’s International Economic Law Project
• Francisco-José Quintana, The (Latin) American Dream? Human Rights and the Construction of Inter-American Regional Organisation (1945–1948)
• Justina Uriburu, Organizing Peace in the Americas: Collective Security versus International Adjudication
• Fabia Fernandes Carvalho, Regional Imaginations of Peace: The Work of the Rio Committee and the Antecedents of the Pact of Bogota (1942–1947)
• George Rodrigo Bandeira Galindo, Epilogue: Bogotá, Law, Time, and Politics

New Issue: International Legal Materials

The latest issue of International Legal Materials (Vol. 63, no. 2, April 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Arbitral Award of Oct. 3, 1899 (Guy. v. Venez.) (Preliminary Objections) (I.C.J.), with introductory note by Bertrand Ramcharan
• Documents on the Consequences of the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, Namely the Enlarged Partial Agreement on the Register of Damage Caused, with introductory note by Bill Bowring
• Case C-663/21, Bundesamt für Fremdenwesen und Asyl v. AA (C.J.E.U.), with introductory note by Elspeth Guild
• Case of Digna Ochoa & Family Members v. Mex. (Inter-Am. Ct. H.R.), with introductory note by Connie de la Vega
• Amendments to the Case-Zablocki Act Concerning Reporting and Publication of International Agreements and Related Regulations (U.S.), with introductory note by Curtis Bradley
• Yegiazaryan v. Smagin (U.S. Sup. Ct.), with introductory note by Juan Pablo Gomez-Moreno
• The Foreign State Immunity Law of the People's Republic of China, with introductory note by William S. Dodge

Haslam: The Subjects and Subjectivities of International Criminal Law: A Critical Introduction

Emily Haslam (Univ. of Kent - Law) has published The Subjects and Subjectivities of International Criminal Law: A Critical Introduction (Hart Publishing 2024). Here's the abstract:

This book provides a critical introduction to the core elements of international criminal law. It does so by provoking thought on what international criminal law is, or could be, by contrasting the practice of widely recognised state-based actors and institutions such as the International Criminal Court with practices associated with non-state actors in particular citizens' tribunals.

International criminal law is now established as an essential legal and institutional response to atrocity. However, it faces a series of political and practical challenges. It is vital to consider its limits and potential, as well as the ways and extent to which those limitations might be addressed. Many actors with very different visions of its nature and parameters play a role in shaping the meaning of international criminal law whether that be in official or unofficial spaces.

This book explores the principles and institutions of international criminal law alongside the alternative visions of it put forward by citizens' tribunals. In so doing it encourages reflection on that law's multiple meanings and usages in order to provoke consideration of what it means, and might mean, to deploy international criminal law today.

New Issue: International Community Law Review

The latest issue of the International Community Law Review (Vol. 26, nos. 1-2, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: The War in Ukraine and International Law
• Dai Tamada, Editorial: Special Issue on the War in Ukraine and International Law
• Masahiko Asada, The War in Ukraine under International Law: Its Use of Force and Armed Conflict Aspects
• Dai Tamada, War in Ukraine and the International Court of Justice: Provisional Measures and the Third-Party Right to Intervene in Proceedings
• Mika Hayashi & Akihiro Yamaguchi, Economic Sanctions against Russia: Questions of Legality and Legitimacy
• Kazuhiro Nakatani, Freezing, Confiscation and Management of the Assets of the Russian Central Bank and the Oligarchs: Legality and Possibility under International Law
• Fujio Kawashima, Trade Sanctions against Russia and their WTO Consistency: Focusing on Justification under National Security Exceptions
• Satoru Taira, WTO Dispute Settlement and Trade Sanctions as Permissible Third-Party Countermeasures under Customary International Law
• Dai Tamada, War in Ukraine and Implications for International Investment Law

Reece Thomas: The Commercial Activity Exception to State Immunity: An Introduction

Katherine Reece Thomas (City Univ. of London - Law) has published The Commercial Activity Exception to State Immunity: An Introduction (Edward Elgar Publishing 2024). Here's the abstract:

In this insightful book, Katherine Reece Thomas explores the constantly evolving nature of state immunity, providing a nuanced analysis of the tension between private and public law. The current rules on the commercial activity exception to state immunity are examined, in both international and domestic law settings, using recent case studies from key jurisdictions including the UK and the US.

Questioning when a state can be sued in a domestic court if it engages in commercial activities, Reece Thomas reveals how a restrictive rather than an absolute doctrine has been adopted and explores the ways in which states allow commercial activity to override state immunity. The implications of this, and of how commercial activity can therefore be defined, are explored through the contexts not only of corporate law but also of central bank sanctions, human rights, employment, and crime, using recent examples from Afghanistan as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Further questions regarding immunity are posed by a crucial discussion on enforcement against state assets.

Comprehensive yet concise, this authoritative work includes consideration of a range of contexts and implications for the commercial activity exception.

New Issue: International Organization

The latest issue of International Organization (Vol. 78, no. 1, Winter 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Articles
• Tyler Jost, Joshua D. Kertzer, Eric Min, & Robert Schub, Advisers and Aggregation in Foreign Policy Decision Making
• Owen R. Brown, The Underside of Order: Race in the Constitution of International Order
• Leonardo Baccini, Magnus Lodefalk, & Radka Sabolová, Economic Determinants of Attitudes Toward Migration: Firm-level Evidence from Europe
• Wilfred M. Chow & Dov H. Levin, The Diplomacy of Whataboutism and US Foreign Policy Attitudes
• Donald Grasse, Renard Sexton, & Austin Wright, Courting Civilians During Conflict: Evidence from Taliban Judges in Afghanistan
• Research Note
• Sivaram Cheruvu & Jay N. Krehbiel, Do Preliminary References Increase Public Support for European Law? Experimental Evidence from Germany

Durkee: States, Firms, and Their Legal Fictions: Attributing Identity and Responsibility to Artificial Entities

Melissa J. Durkee (Washington Univ., St Louis - Law) has published States, Firms, and Their Legal Fictions: Attributing Identity and Responsibility to Artificial Entities (Cambridge Univ. Press 2024). The table of contents is here. Here's the abstract:

This volume offers a new point of entry into questions about how the law conceives of states and firms. Because states and firms are fictitious constructs rather than products of evolutionary biology, the law dictates which acts should be attributed to each entity, and by which actors. Those legal decisions construct firms and states by attributing identity and consequences to them. As the volume shows, these legal decisions are often products of path dependence or conceptual metaphors like “personhood” that have expanded beyond their original uses. Focusing on attribution, the volume considers an array of questions about artificial entities that are usually divided into doctrinal siloes. These include questions about attribution of international legal responsibility to states and state-owned entities, transnational attribution of liabilities to firms, and attribution of identity rights to corporations. Durkee highlights the artificiality of doctrines that construct firms and states, and therefore their susceptibility to change.

New Issue: Nordic Journal of International Law

The latest issue of the Nordic Journal of International Law (Vol. 93, no. 1, 2024) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Celebrating Interdisciplinarity in Nordic Approaches to International Law
• Zuzanna Godzimirska & William Hamilton Byrne, Celebrating Interdisciplinarity in Nordic Approaches to International Law
• Silvia Steininger, William Hamilton Byrne, & Raphael Oidtmann, The Blind Men and the Elephant: An Empirical Analysis of the Social Sciences in International Law
• Runar Hilleren Lie & Malcolm Langford, The Computational Turn in International Law
• Zuzanna Godzimirska & Anne Lise Kjaer, Taking Texts Seriously: The Language of International Law
• Nora Stappert & Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Bridging the Gap: Practice Theory in Interdisciplinary International Law and International Relations Scholarship
• Outi Korhonen & Mervi Leppäkorpi, Elusive Interdisciplinarity in International Law in the Nordics
• Jan Klabbers, The Ethics of Inter-disciplinarity and the Academic Industry
• Sara Olsvig & Miriam Cullen, Arctic Indigenous Peoples and International Law

Conference: 2024 ESIL Research Forum

The European Society of International Law's 2024 Research Forum will take place April 18-19, 2024, in Nicosia, hosted by the Department of Law of the University of Cyprus. The theme is: "Revisiting Interactions Between Legal Orders." The program is here. Registration is here.

Benton: They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence

Lauren Benton (Yale Univ. - History) has published They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence (Princeton Univ. Press 2024). Here's the abstract:

Imperial conquest and colonization depended on pervasive raiding, slaving, and plunder. European empires amassed global power by asserting a right to use unilateral force at their discretion. They Called It Peace is a panoramic history of how these routines of violence remapped the contours of empire and reordered the world from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries.

In an account spanning from Asia to the Americas, Lauren Benton shows how imperial violence redefined the very nature of war and peace. Instead of preparing lasting peace, fragile truces ensured an easy return to war. Serial conflicts and armed interventions projected a de facto state of perpetual war across the globe. Benton describes how seemingly limited war sparked atrocities, from sudden massacres to long campaigns of dispossession and extermination. She brings vividly to life a world in which warmongers portrayed themselves as peacemakers and Europeans imagined “small” violence as essential to imperial rule and global order.

Holding vital lessons for us today, They Called It Peace reveals how the imperial violence of the past has made perpetual war and the threat of atrocity endemic features of the international order.

Conference: Cambridge International Law Journal 13th Annual Conference

On April 8-9, 2024, the Cambridge International Law Journal will hold its 13th Annual Conference at the University of Cambridge and virtually. The theme is: "The Intersection of Peace and Sustainability in International Law." Details are here.

New Volume: Japanese Yearbook of International Law

The latest volume of the Japanese Yearbook of International Law (Vol. 66, 2023) is out. Contents include:

• Human Rights Approach to Regulate Armed Conflicts: Beyond the Lex Generalis/Specialis Framework
• Shuichi Furuya & Kyo Arai, Introductory Note
• Yuval Shany, Human Rights Norms Applicable in the Situation of Armed Conflict — Beyond the Lex Generalis/Lex Specialis Framework —
• William Schabas, The Right to Life in Armed Conflict
• Vanessa Murphy & Lindsey Cameron, Gender Bias and International Humanitarian Law: Is Human Rights Law the Answer?
• Eriko Tamura, Child Soldiers: Victims or Lawful Targets?
• Kyo Arai, Procedural Aspect of the Right to Life in Armed Conflict
• Mobility and Belonging in a Globalized World
• Yuko Nishitani, Introductory Note
• Nami Thea Ohnishi, Nationality and Citizenship in Relation to the Migration Phenomenon
• Hirohide Takikawa, Free Movement and Nationality
• Kiyoshi Hasegawa, Inclusion and Exclusion of Immigrants and Refugees in Japan: A Preliminary Study
• Kondo Atsushi, Human Rights of Non-Citizens and Nationality — The Peculiarities of Japan’s Nationality Legislation from a Comparative Legal Perspective —
• Obata Kaoru, Beyond the Concept of “Human Rights of Permanently Domiciled Foreigners” in Japanese Public Law Theory — Taking Seriously of Ambiguity in Nationality in the Age of International Migration —
• Yuko Nishitani, Personal Law in Contemporary Private International Law — The Changing Role of Nationality, Citizenship, and Habitual Residence —
• Theories and Realities in (Re-)Construction of Spatial Orders
• Lauri Mälksoo, The Rise and Fall of Regional International Law in Post-Soviet Eurasia
• Tetsuya Toyoda, Universality and Peculiarity of the Concept of Exclusive Territoriality — The Linearization of Borders and Territorial Sovereignty in East Asia Since the Late 19th Century —
• Yumiko Nakanishi, The Development of, and Issues Associated with, EU Legal Spaces
• Public International Law
• Andrew Serdy, The 2022 Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies: The WTO Mountain Labours and Brings Forth a Possibly Short-Lived Mouse
• Japanese Digest of International Law
• Atsuko Kanehara, Japan’s Discharge of ALPS Treated Water Containing Tritium
• Mari Takeuchi, Extraterritorial Regulation in the Field of Data Privacy — Japan’s Amendments to the Personal Information Protection Act —
• Cases and Issues in Japanese Private International Law
• Shiho Kato, Dismissal of Proceedings on Account of Special Circumstances Under Article 3-9 of the Japanese Code of Civil Procedure
• Ai Murakami, Extraterritorial Application of the Japanese Antimonopoly Act